More paving for Pittsburgh streets

People are complaining about rough rides and bad street conditions all across Pittsburgh.

"This is Crestline Street. Horrible. It's like driving through a minefield. It just shakes to no end, the suspension of your vehicle. It's horrible," said an East Hills neighborhood resident named Chuck, who declined to give his last name.

Council members say they see the problems first hand. Councilman Dan Gilman told colleagues he recently toured city neighborhoods to check on street conditions.

"It was so dangerous, not just for your car, but people were swerving, you don't expect someone to swerve, and it was causing accidents. So it's actually a public safety issue at this point," said Gilman.

Council approved Mayor Bill Peduto's plan to scrape together another $1.8 million in funds from more than a dozen other city accounts and transfer them to street paving for this year. That will boost 2014's paving from 28 miles worth to 40 miles of city streets. It's still far less than the ideal 90 miles a year; that amount hasn't been done since 1994 due to Pittsburgh's money crunch.

"I realize that we're out of money. But I realize that up here, we're having a tough time. I am a senior citizen, I'm 73 years old," said Esther Sloan of East Hills. She says her Access service van has trouble driving to her home on Crestline Street.

"The money that we need to pave (all of the streets in poor condition in) the city is double the capital budget right now. That's huge. That's a crisis. I would call paving a crisis in our city, " said Councilwoman Natalia Rudiak.

"It's not fair for people to pay taxes and then sink into each pothole as they're trying to get out of their home," said Councilwoman Darlene Harris.

Residents, City Council members and Peduto's administration all say that calling the city's 311 line can help move your street higher on the paving priority list.

"There's more potholes than any time in the 30 years I've lived here," said Kim Lincoln from Squirrel Hill.

But she said repeated calls to the city's 311 line brought results on her street.

"We had a huge pothole in front of our house and it was all repaved, last week or two weeks ago," Lincoln said.

"It's really very important to call 311 over, and over, and over again, to report the condition of your streets," said City Councilman Rev. Ricky Burgess.

"That makes the information available to us. And we're going to hope that we continue to get the funding that we need to get to pave the streets, (so) we won't be in this position in the years coming," said Pittsburgh Public Works Director Mike Gable.

The Public Works Department uses a pavement management system that rates street conditions, but of 866 asphalt-paved city streets, the system rates 570 at zero -- the lowest possible score. In addition to the system and 311 calls, Gable said "we have our supervisors that are out there every day, canvassing the streets."

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